...while coming home from late night hockey practice.
Knew there was something about you that was good!
Apparently the issue in Toronto is where underground electrical connections, installed with metal covers experience leaking to the cover. When you step on one that is leaking you get zapped.
To accurately determine which of the 15,000 boxes are faulty they have to inspect each one by removing the cover. Some are bolted in place, corroded, etc. Some have to be jack hammered out to test them! New plastic/composite boxes are being used. They expect it to take a couple of months to check all of them. Advise is not to step on any metal box in the sidewalk!
That link to the ConEd experience sounds like a similar issue.